


Breathe

by simonbananaao3



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Afterlife, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eddie is still dead, IT Chapter Two Spoilers, M/M, Nosebleed, Suicide, Suicide Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 08:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20871542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simonbananaao3/pseuds/simonbananaao3
Summary: Richie doesn't know how to move on after Eddie is gone. There is only one way to meet him again.





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING - SUICIDE

Breathe, he told himself. 

Be still, he demanded of his beating heart. 

Cease the foul hum and tum, pushing ever onward to keep him alive. 

Stop the madness. 

Break the chain. 

If he can’t have him then what’s the point? What’s the point in opening his eyes if he can’t see through the tears? What’s the point in drinking if there’s no one to drink about? What’s the point in crying when tears don’t create? 

And that’s why he stayed silent. He never told another joke. He never spoke. Mute? No, just quiet. He could speak, but why would he? He wouldn’t be there to hear it. 

When he did speak, and that was rare, he was alone. He taped the doors shut. He bought blackout curtains. He killed the lights. He surrounded himself with the dark. It felt better if he couldn’t see himself. He spoke into the dark.

“Eddie,” he said, his voice unsure. His throat was dry and it hurt to talk. 

“Eddie,” he spoke again, with more assurance. There was no answer. There wouldn’t be.

“Eddie!” he yelled now. He forgot the power that his voice could have. He felt like he was burning.

“EDDIE! EDDIE! EDDIE!” he kept shouting. Out of breath, he paused. He listened. His voice echoed off the walls. The hopeful would hear it as a response, but Richie was far from hopeful. 

“Please.” It was a whisper now. He didn’t know who he was speaking to. If anyone was listening, and no one was, maybe they could do something about it.

Richie felt a drop on his lip. He couldn’t see what it was. He took some of the liquid on his fingertip and smelled it. 

Nosebleed. 

It didn’t matter. He didn’t get up. He continued to sit on his bed, and he closed his eyes. 

And at that moment, he felt the first sense of power he had felt in weeks. He smiled at himself, blood now entering his mouth. He had that power to say no to his body. He wasn’t going to stop the blood. He wasn’t going to give in to need. He was going to stay right where he was, and nothing was going to make him move. 

Blood got on to his shirt. It certainly stained the sheets, perhaps even the carpet, but he wasn’t moving. He had power over himself, he realized. He wasn’t afraid anymore. 

He did get up, but not because he was going to stop the blood. He walked into the bathroom and turned on the light. Red blood covered the entire lower half of his face. It was a sharp contrast to his pale skin, dry and ashen from lack of life. 

He wasn’t afraid of himself. 

He reveled in his mortality. 

No one lived forever, anyway. 

He wasn’t going to write a note. He wasn’t going to give the investigators the pleasure of a motive. If they were him, they would have been doing the same thing. 

He took some fresh blood from his nose and wrote his last words on the mirror. He turned off all the lights and left the building. 

He took the stairs to the rooftop. The city, in all of its glory, could not heal Richie Tozier. No audience, no crowd, no drink nor drug could fix him. 

Richie stepped on to the ledge, raised his middle fingers to the world, and took the short way down.

When the police arrived at the scene, they found a dirty apartment and some blood on the carpet.

“Any of you boys find a note?” the chief asked. An officer went into the bathroom and turned on the light.

“I think so,” he said. The chief came into the bloody bathroom and read the mirror. He chuckled a little. 

It was messy, but the words  _ The fun’s just beginning  _ shined like stars.

-

Richie opened his eyes. He was sitting in a field of grass. It was quiet. It was comforting. He remembered the sound of the city streets becoming louder as he fell faster and faster. But then, it was quiet. It was calm.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” a voice said. Richie’s eyes focused on the boy before him. It was all too much. Eddie was there, but he was young again, eternally beautiful. Richie couldn’t find the words. He had thought about this moment for so long, and now that it was here, he had no idea what to say. 

“Why’d you do it, Richie?” Eddie said. Richie spoke, but it was through tears, the first tears of happiness he had ever had. 

“For this. For you,” he said. Richie held out his hand. Eddie looked down at it. Eddie didn’t grab it immediately. Eddie reached his hand out and touched Richie’s tenderly. He traced the veins on Richie’s wrist and laced his fingers in between Richie’s. 

Richie realized that he had the hands of his younger self. His skin, his face, his hands. He was young again. 

“You went twenty-seven years without me,” Eddie said.

“I couldn’t go another second, Eds.”  _ Eds.  _ The pet name, familiar and foreign, just slipped out. 

“Ever since it happened…ever since you died…” Richie was crying now, “I couldn’t go on.” Eddie contemplated the words. His eyes were still on their hands.

“I watched you carve our initials into the bridge. I think that’s when I stopped lying to myself.”

“Lying?” Richie asked. Eddie looked him in the eyes now. He stuttered when he spoke.

“I can’t keep pretending that you’re not the love of my life, Richie,” he said. Richie let out a few more tears, but he smiled, really smiled, for the first time in so long. 

“Please hold me,” was all Richie could say. And Eddie did hold him because he could now. Richie could be in his arms. Richie was in his arms. 

All of the things they didn’t say could be said. All of the kisses, caresses, and embraces. All of the soft-spoken words that they used to only utter in dreams could be spoken, loud and proud. 

All of the fear washed away. All of the pain. It was gone. As Richie held on to Eddie’s hand, he leaned in and kissed him. It would be the first of infinite. 

They stayed wrapped in each other, on the grass, in a world built just for them. They could have stayed together like that for as long as they wanted. They might still be in each other’s arms as their story is being told. 

They can begin their life.

Together.

For they have time now.

**Author's Note:**

> This was probably my darkest work. I've seen It Chapter 2 three times now. It doesn't get easier.


End file.
